Conventional carrier transport devices transport a carrier by means of belt conveyors, roller conveyors, linear-motor conveyors and the like. Carrier transport devices which transport bobbin carriers holding yarn wound bobbins along a path by engaging a holding pin of the bobbin carrier in openings between the teeth of the gears of a transport mechanism in braiding machines are also known.
These conventional carrier transport devices can be used to transport carriers in a single direction, but when the carrier must be transported in two dimensions within the same plane, the structure of the device becomes complicated. Further, these conventional carrier transport devices have difficulty reliably bringing the carrier to a stop at a desired location because of the rotational momentum of the driving mechanism and the inertia of the carrier.
In the carrier transport device of a braiding machine which drives a carrier engaged in the teeth of gears, the carrier track along which the carrier runs cannot be designed arbitrarily because the carrier track depends upon the layout of the gears and the holding pins. Consequentially, such a carrier transport device can only be used in a braiding machine for forming braided structures or in machines of similar design. Further, the carrier track of such a transport device is comprised of a narrow groove along which the carrier runs, and is comprised as a single element, to assemble multiple separable bars of a fixed width in a groove of a fixed narrow gauge makes operation relatively difficult and time-consuming, and consequentially makes the braiding machine more complicated and expensive. Further, interlocking gears must be rotated in order to run the carrier, making it very noisy.